


Even

by acertaindefenseattorney



Series: Prompt responses [5]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertaindefenseattorney/pseuds/acertaindefenseattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1-word prompt response: Thomas, 'apology/apologies'</p><p>Set in my canon-divergent dream scenario. You don't need to know much about that, but in terms of timeline, it takes place post-S6 E8, pre-S6 CS. Rather than a new job, Thomas receives a letter from his cousin in Bombay's solicitor, starts a new life in India, meets Philip some years later on somewhat more equal footing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even

‘You broke my heart,’ he says, pointing his cigarette, and the Duke scoffs into his brandy, shakes his head.

‘You threatened to _blackmail_ me. You might well call us even.’

Thomas smirks, straightens his glove.

‘If you want, then.’

 

The silence that falls between them now, he thinks, is more comfortable than any they might have allowed in their youth.

It stretches on, full of the sounds of night birds, the hum of insects in the grass, the chatter of the indoors patrons spilling from the windows; the clink of cutlery, the business of the social season going on all about their heads.

A young couple walks arm in arm up the hill in front of them, a boy and a girl, pressed close, and firing complicated, wooing barbs back and forth, meant at once to charm and to ensnare.

 

‘It does all seem so awfully long ago, doesn’t it,’ says Philip, giving voice to Thomas’s thoughts, and Thomas considers them; both with grey in their hair, faces well-worn by lives lived simultaneously, if not together, at opposite ends of the same periphery; he is scarred in places he had never thought to be; Philip is a father, a husband. He nods.

’An age.’

‘You will come to my hotel?’

‘I think, actually,’ says Thomas, standing, taking up his hat, ‘that you’d just as well come to my house, instead. It’s much nearer.’

‘Oh, my,’ says Philip - and if Thomas wasn’t already convinced, surely the lazy, boozy grin he flashes him would do it. ‘We have done well for ourselves. Lead the way, please.’


End file.
